The former general manager of a giant retirement community in Indio pleaded not guilty to stealing more than $100,000 from the homeowners association he worked for in a court hearing on Jan. 31.

Ceasar Larrach, 46, was an employee of the housing management company Associa working at Sun City Shadow Hills in Indio, a 3,450-home development for people ages 55 and over.

A group of about 10 residents of Sun City Shadow Hills attended Larrach's arraignment.

"To be quite frank with you, I've told people that if this continues, I'm going to move," said Michael Bard, 78, who moved to the retirement community part time in 2010. "I want to enjoy the rest of my life."

Larrach pled not guilty to three counts of grand theft. The Riverside County District Attorney alleges that he stole about $104,000 from the Sun City Shadow Hills HOA between February 2015 and June 2017.

Larrach "committed two or more related felonies, a material element of which was fraud or embezzlement," according to a complaint filed on Jan. 19.

Larrach's arrest follows an investigation into wrongdoing at the development where he worked. Indio police opened an investigation into Sun City Shadow Hills in October after homeowners learned that Associa had discovered a "financial discrepancy" of $110,000 in its accounts connected to a former employee.

Sun City Shadow Hills (SCSH) says it has more than 6,000 residents, a population roughly equivalent to that of the nearby city Indian Wells.

The housing complex is governed by a volunteer board comprised of residents that run its homeowners association. That board has hired Associa, a for-profit management company, to run day-to-day operations. Associa oversees 9,000 properties in North America, including others in the Coachella Valley.

Larrach worked at SCSH from September 2014 until his resignation in the summer of 2017. Before his departure, Larrach wrote in an email to residents that leaving the Indio complex "is the right choice for the association and for me personally."

In October 2017, Larrach was named executive director of Sun City Hilton Head Community Association in South Carolina, according to media reports, but did not stay at the job for long. The following month, landscaping company LandCare announced that it had hired Larrach in Indio. (A LandCare representative reached on Jan. 31 said Larrach no longer works for the company.)

Kim Fuller, president of Sun City Shadow Hills' board of directors, told The Desert Sun in December that the complex's internal investigation found unauthorized transactions in an account used for miscellaneous community expenses, but did not find any discrepancies in larger accounts that are only accessible to board members.

Larrach's next hearing is a felony settlement conference on Feb. 8.

Reach business and real estate reporter Amy DiPierro at Amy.DiPierro@desertsun.com or on Twitter @amydipierro.